By Jo Deakin, Claire Fox, Raquel Matos

The construction and labelling of groups of young people as ‘risky’ sets off a multifaceted and dynamic social process of stigma that frequently results in reduced life chances and limited opportunities for change. Drawing on case study data from 4 European countries, this paper focuses on the ways in which stigma is reproduced through interactions and interventions that label young people. Our analysis explores how young people experience and understand stigma, and how they respond to it. Framed within a theoretical understanding of stigma as a construct of power we examine its components and cyclical process, its role in shaping policies of social control, and its consequences for groups of ‘risky’ young people. Our analysis develops Link and Phelan’s (2001) concept to include reference to young people’s reactions and responses: alienation and marginalisation; anger and resistance; empathy and generativity. In conclusion, we argue that stigma acts primarily as an inhibitor of young people’s constructive engagement in wider society, serving to reduce beneficial opportunities. However, some young people are able to resist the label, and, for them, resistance can become generative and enabling.

European Journal of Criminology. 19, 4, p. 653-673 21 p., 2022

By Barbara J. Costello and John H. Laub

The publication of Travis Hirschi’s Causes of Delinquency in 1969 was a watershed moment in criminology. There are many reasons for the work’s lasting influence. Hirschi carefully examined the underlying assumptions of extant theories of crime in light of what was known about the individual-level correlates of offending. He then developed critical tests of hypotheses derived from social control theory and competing perspectives and empirically assessed them using original self-report delinquency data. Many of his key findings, such as the negative correlation between attachment to parents and delinquency, are now established facts that any explanation of crime must consider. Causes of Delinquency is still cited hundreds of times per year, and it continues to spark new research and theoretical development in the field. Perhaps the most lasting legacy is the volume of criticism it has attracted and fended off, leading to its enduring contribution to the study of crime and delinquency    

  Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2020. 3:21–41

By A. Dirks.

This dissertation project focuses on forced re-education policies for juvenile delinquents in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) and uses this topic to show the interaction between a 'modernizing' Dutch colonial state and the growth of a colonial civil society, between approximately 1872 and 1942. It uncovers specific government and private initiatives – like state re-education institutes, orphanages, and schools – that attempted to turn young delinquents of Indonesian and (Indo-)European heritage into 'proper' Dutch colonial subjects and citizens. The dissertation shows that a colonial civil society - both European and indigenous - was rapidly developing in the twentieth century and had an undeniable influence on state policies. The book also seeks to understand and reveal the influence of racialized government and private reform policies on the lives of the children that were deemed 'delinquent', their parents and communities.This dissertation focuses on forced re-education policies for juvenile delinquents in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) and uses this topic to show the interaction between a 'modernizing' Dutch colonial state and the growth of a 'colonial civil society', between approximately 1872 and 1945. It explains the development of specific government and private initiatives like state re-education institutes, orphanages, and schools that attempted to turn young delinquents of Indonesian and (Indo-)European heritage into 'proper' Dutch colonial subjects and citizens. The dissertation shows that a colonial civil society was rapidly developing in the twentieth century and had an undeniable influence on state policies. The dissertation reveals the impact of racialized government and private reform policies on the lives of the children that were deemed 'delinquent', their parents and communities.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2011. 384p.

By William Healy and August F. Bronner.

Their making and unmaking : studies in two American cities. “Convinced that the first step toward improvement in the treatment of delinquency is measurement of the effectiveness of methods of treatment, we began several years ago a special research concerning outcomes. Our case studies of a large series of juvenile offenders, the first extensive group studied by scientific methods, we have reviewed in the light of what was done with and for the individual. The work has grown and we have entered into other inquiries concerning the results of treatment in other series and in another city, all for the sake of what might be learned by comparative studies. Such evaluations offer the only possible basis for the shaping of wiser policies for the prevention and treatmentof delinquency and crime.”

New York: Macmillan, 1926. 317p.